


where did you go come back dear heart

by clizzyhours



Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: 3.11 AU, 3.11 Canon Compliant, Angst, Clizzy - Freeform, Dark, F/F, Ghosts, Hopeful Ending, Isabelle’s POV, Longing, also don’t yell at me i have plans for this, anyways isabelle is canonically in love with clary fight me, description of haunting and blood and violence, heed the warnings pleSd
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:47:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,390
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237734
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/clizzyhours/pseuds/clizzyhours
Summary: Clary is gone and Isabelle is lost. Or the 3.11 AU in which Isabelle is haunted by a dark presence and has an unexpected guardian angel.





	where did you go come back dear heart

**Author's Note:**

> warnings: major character death. literally canon but au. violence. ghosts. hauntings. fighting. Isabelle struggling with grief.
> 
> prompt: ghost/human au  
team orange. mayhaps i am still going.
> 
> thank you so much for reading and pls enjoy! 💘

Clary is gone.

Clary is de -

She can’t say the words. It’s too permanent. The word ‘gone’ is easier, more safer.

Isabelle can’t. She can’t. She can’t. It’s too much.

She once said to Raphael that everybody thinks she’s strong but really, she isn’t. And yet. Loss clings to her like a shrouded phantom so she pastes on a wide ruby smile and straightens her posture. 

She strides confidently. Isabelle transforms herself and wields empathy on her sleeve.

Her black heeled boots clack loudly against the wooden floor of Jace’s bedroom and she peeks in.

“Jace?” She calls out.

Her brother is hunched over on his bed, hands covering his face. She can hear his silent tears.

Isabelle slowly slips into the room and kneels by him, her hand carefully placed on top of his knee.

“Jace?” She whispers gently.

He glances up, hands falling to his sides in tensed fists at his hemochromatic eyes swell with tears.

It hurts to look at him.

She moves her hand onto Jace’s tight knuckles, pulls him into a comforting hug and murmurs, “I miss her too. I understand the kind of pain you are in.”

Jace looks at her like she struck him, bigger hurt and sadness etched. 

“I am sorry, Isabelle, you don’t know what it’s like. You don’t.”

Isabelle wants to suddenly scream yes, yes, i do. i love her too.

She pulls a tight smile and spills out bitter lies to Jace. She comforts him like he’s a child and soothes his ache.

Isabelle is used to comforting and protecting and defending her brothers against everything including themselves.

He clings to her tightly and the moment ends as he gets up and slips out of the room like a quiet tiptoe.

Isabelle is left kneeling on the ground, feeling a plethora of heartbreak.

She hates having a heart. It hurts too much.

Look at what love has done to her brother’s. To her mother and to her father who wear their secrets blindly. To herself.

It’s an almost disgrace, she wants to hiss out-loud.

Isabelle gets up and dusts the nonexistent dirt from her belted skinny black jeans. She exits the room and closes the heavy door behind her, the wooden door swinging shut with a quiet slam.

The hallway is solemn, silent. She doesn’t spy any Shadowhunter at the moment but she suspects that a majority of them are in bed, currently going through shifts for patrol.

Isabelle begins the trek down the hall, heels clacking noisily. The lights flicker once. 

She blinks, dark eyes scanning the hallway with her electrum whip slowly unfurling like a slithering snake.

The light flickers two more times and Isabelle narrows her eyes.

The Insituite has state of art technology and innovation with rich architecture and brilliant lighting. It’s unlikely to fail especially with backup generators in place.

And yet she can’t help but feel suspicion. She wouldn’t be a good Shadowhunter if she didn’t.

Isabelle slowly moves and the light flickers off, leaving her in complete darkness. She activates her light rune and immediately scans the area, her eyes flicking on a silver of something -  
before the lights abruptly switch back on.

What?

She creeps again.

The lights do not turn back off but Isabelle can’t help but feel unnerved.

A cold chill sweeps through her and Isabelle moves forward.

There’s work to be done.

Isabelle looks into her silver ornate full-length mirror, dresses in a silk night pajama tank top-short set with a floral robe curving around her.

She runs her wooden brush through her dark hair again and again and again, the rhythm soothing.

Her eyes shut briefly before opening again, a silent scream in her mouth. The brush clatters.

Clary is in her mirror and Isabelle cannot breathe.

Her eyes widen and she touches the mirror.

It can’t be.

Clary is de -

She is gone.

Isabelle touches the mirror and sees the red hair. Green eyes and expensive dark blue dress. It’s her. It’s not. It can’t be.

A demon in disguise or is she hallucinating? Sleep has been awful lately for her, tossing and turning with fresh nightmares of her fallen brothers and glass destroyed and an exploding building where her heart had left her. 

Isabelle’s fingers are still touching the mirror.

help me, her mirror pleads. the clary figure is pleading, she notes.

how, her heart, mind, and body sing. Her Runes thrum, lighting up intensely and alight in gold.

Isabelle -

Isabelle screams and slides to the ground as her mirror shrieks.

The glass breaks, falls, scatters like tiny diamond shards.

They don’t touch her nor do they get near her.

She feels bathed in golden light and it envelops her, kind and gentle as a calm sea.

Isabelle is overwhelmed and falls unconscious.

When she wakes, her mirror is untouched and Isabelle can’t. She doesn’t.

She doesn’t know how to react or even what to do.

It’s not normal, the logical side of her brain points out.

It’s grief, her heart sings.

You are a Shadowhunter, her body tells her. Be strong.

Isabelle knows she should tell Alec. Jace. Her mother. Anyone.

She doesn’t and keeps this vision, this heartbreaking nightmare to herself.

It’s lack of sleep, Isabelle tells herself. It must be.

Isabelle dresses and goes on with her day.

In the days that follow, Isabelle feels chilling temperatures and swears she hears a mimic of laughter. She’s senses something unnerving and yet - 

help me, she hears.

In nights, Isabelle dreams of fierce red hair and sugar kisses lips and what-if’s, waking up gasping and breathing heavily. She feels a powerful strength in these quiet moments - a golden light of sort, she has begun to describe it as.

Clary, she almost thinks.

Everything goes to hell when Isabelle is on patrol, her sword gleaming in the neon lights of the alley.

A demon is roaming the New York streets and well, Isabelle, couldn’t help but volunteer. Empty heart and soul, she has nothing to lose. It’s not in her nature to lose. 

The shadows seem to grow stronger and Isabelle creeps silently. Her demon bracelet is lit up fiercely and she almost smirks, prepared to feel the victorious rush once she strikes.

But then.

There’s a flicker and she senses an ominous presence, clawing and grappling with tangible hands. Her bracelet is going off wildly, red alert evident.

She can’t see her enemy.

Izzy needs to call for back up.

Panic hasn’t quite settled in and Isabelle is suddenly thrown, rolling and landing far, far away on broken beer bottles and piles of cardboard, littered trash galore. Her sword is various feet away.

The presence grows stronger and fear has begun to surge through her veins.

Invisible clarity, she blearily thinks.

She can’t fight an enemy she can’t see. Isabelle feels slow and sluggish, trying to throw her electrum whip into the air and lasso the growing darkness.

Wonder Woman would, she thinks amusedly.

The figure is growing expansively and her bracelet is going off. She can’t see through the murky darkness, the neon alley lights consumed by nothingness. Her phone is broken and scattered into electronic fragments.

By The Angel, she frighteningly murmurs.

Her stele is gone and she can feel a hot bit of blood oozing against her stomach.

This is it, she thinks yet again.

Isabelle closes her eyes and thinks Clary, Clary, Clary, a heartbroken lullaby.

She wished she had the courage to say confess and say yes, i love you, i love you more than you will ever know. choose me, please, please.

Her Runes light up and the golden light bathes her immensely. A shot of sunlight bursts from her hand as Isabelle’s eyes open.

She feels safe, protected.

get up, she hears.

Isabelle struggles to move, her body weighed down.

get up, she hears, an almost shriek.

Clary, she says.

“Clary.”

isabelle, get up and move.

Isabelle struggles to stand and she feels weighed down with the angelic glow, sunlight drifting.

you and me, remember?

Isabelle nods and shoots bright light into the darkness again and again and again until the presence is gone, depleted and erased.

Her Runes feel warm still and Isabelle says again.

“Clary?”

i am always with you, isabelle.

Don’t go where I can’t follow, she thinks.

find me, clary murmurs.

I will.


End file.
